No Idea Where To Invest? Start Here February 13, 2017My MoneyOff

You’ve undoubtedly heard that investing is one of the best ways (maybe the only way) to ensure you’re seeing your money grow for the future. But you might not be entirely sure where to start putting your money. There are a lot of options to learn about, but we’re going to start with the most common and what they have to offer you. This is where you start building your investment.

Stocks
When you talk about where to invest, then there are two markets that people tend to use as examples. The first of those is the stock market. Stock markets tend to be a higher risk than the other examples here, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to play it safer with them. Stocks are held by organizations and entities, traded depending on how the corporation moves or the sector as a whole moves. It is at least somewhat risky because a bad headline can hurt any company, for instance, among many other factors. But we live in a world where commercial success has the chance to be truly great, so it’s also one of the most potentially profitable investments to make.

Bonds
On the other hand, you have bonds. Unlike stocks, bonds are an example of safe income investments. They operate almost like savings and are used to build a financial safety net for the future. The main difference to savings accounts being that you can sell your bond before maturity if you want. They have a predictable movement and you can expect the level of interest you’re going to get. The downside is you won’t see the kinds of potential gains you could from stocks. That’s why you need to decide how risky or risk-averse you want to be when you’re weighing your portfolio between the two.

Real Estate
If you’re not fond of watching numbers move and dictate your financial future without any input, but you still want big gains, then it might be worth looking at real estate. Most people with some learning can understand it. It’s about spotting properties with a great market appeal. Or spotting properties in developing areas like Alchemy by Alta that have a clear future. Then it’s about either learning how to manage those properties to make rent as an income, or how to improve them to see a profit in selling. If you prefer a more hands-on approach to investing, then real estate can help you brings the abstract into the physical world.

Business
If you want more control of your profits and you have the expertise and a gap in the market, then a business can get you even more hands-on than real estate. Starting a business might involve a lot more personal investment and risk, so you need to make triply sure that you’re ready to start your own. However, if you do, it gives you the most control over how successful or not your investment is.

Better than any of the options above is as many of them as possible. An important strategy everyone has to learn is to diversify their investments. Insulate yourself from as much damage to any one market as possible by spreading your capital among them. That way when one suffers, you can expect that the rest won’t follow suit.

Photo by Kazoka | Shutterstock

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